Category Archives for Mindset

Tips for sleeping better

Hello champ,

I hope you feel good! In the previous article, I described how you can make the most of your morning. A good morning routine can help you to feel much fitter and awake, but it is also important that you have a high-quality sleep. In this article, I will tell you some tips for sleeping better.

Make sleeping a routine

I’m sure you heard from the tip that you should try to go to bed always at the same time and stand up at the same time. I know this can be very hard to achieve with all the parties.. 😀 But if you have to do a lot and for example, you have to learn for exams this can be very helpful.

Try to maintain about 8 hours of sleep and make it a routine to go to bed always at the same time. You should do this not only on weekdays but also on the weekend. This will help your body to sleep much better.

Avoid screens

Maybe you heard from this, but the blue led light of screens can harm your sleep quality. The blue lights invoke a special hormone which keeps you awake. That is the reason why Apple released in iOS 10 the new feature that will change the color of the screens into more warm lights at night.

This is absolutely helpful, but it is more helpful if you try to avoid screens for at least one hour before going to bed. It is better if you can avoid them for two hours. You can use this time to read a book, going for a walk or maybe even learn if you want to.

I read a book before going to bed until my eyes are getting tired and then I go to sleep and usually I fall asleep in the next 15 minutes after going.

Don’t go hungry in bed

In order to sleep better, you should not go hungry to bed. But also you should try not going to bed if you are full. Try eating something light before going to bed like fruits or don’t eat something heavy for at least 1 hour before going to bed.

If you are too full your body has to work to stomach your food and this will harm you sleep quality. Also if you go hungry to bed your body may have not enough nutrients to recover itself. Many important recovery activities take place while sleeping, so try to help your body here! In return, your body will be much more rested the next day and you feel much fitter.

Darken and quiet down your room

You have the best sleep quality if your room is as quiet and dark as possible. Turn off your tv and your PC, because even the smallest light can affect your sleeping.

Also, try to cancel all possible sounds which can harm your sleep quality. That means that you set your phone to silent mode or even turn on the flight mode. Of course, there are sounds like neighbors or cars driving by where you can do nothing against it, but you can try to change the things you can change like your phone and so on.

Shut down your head

Many people have the problem that when they go to bed their head is kinda going crazy. You think about your day and maybe all the tasks you have to do tomorrow and you get nervous about the next exam and you’re not sure whether you learned enough.

I had the same problem especially in the days before an exam or something like that. But I found a way on how to quiet my head. I was able to shut down my thinking by starting to meditate. I’m sure many think now about Budda or something like that but meditation has nothing to do with religion.

Meditation is a training for the mind and helps you to release stress. There are many different meditation programs or video out there and I think many of them are useful. I’m using the app Calm and I still love the effects of meditation.

At the beginning, I was a little skeptical if it really helps. I started meditating two weeks before a big exam. And those two weeks have been really eye opening for me. I meditated about 10-15 minutes every day before going to bed. In the night before the exam, I was really relaxed in the head and fall quickly asleep. This was the first time something like this happened.

In addition, in the minutes before the exam, where I’ve been usually very nervous, I was relaxed and ready for the exam. I think I don’t have to mention that the exam was easy for me because I was so relaxed in my head that I didn’t have any problems remembering things or solve complex assignments.

I think the last tip is the most useful tip for many people out there. I hear it a lot that people can’t sleep because of their head. But when I try to help them and say “try to meditate” many people laugh or refuse to give it a try.

As I described, in the beginning, I was also very skeptical. But I gave it a try. It only costs 10-15 minutes a day and you don’t need any equipment. You can do it before going to bed or after waking up. And I think everyone has 10-15 minutes every day for themselves.

For me, all these tips help me very much when it comes to sleeping. I sleep a lot better than I used to and I feel much fitter in spite of I sleep less.

But now I want to hear from you. Did these tips help you or do you have additional tips? I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment below!

Best regards,

Fabi

How to have the perfect morning

Hello champ,

I hope you feel alright because I feel awesome right now 🙂

Do you know the people who are fit and energized in the morning? Are you one of them? Or are you one of these persons who need a lot of coffee and time to get awake? Then you should absolutly read this article to be more fit and energized in the morning!

Place your alarm clock away from the bed

For me many mornings have looked like this: alarm is ringing: snooze. 5 minutes later: snooze… and so on. Until I felt fit enough to stand up. So usually when my alarm was set to 6:30am I never went out of bed before 7:00am. That means I wasted around 30 minutes everyday with hitting the snooze button.

So I thought that I need some change. I searched around the web and I found the tip to place the alarm clock away from my bed. So before going to bed I placed my alarm clock somewhere else, so I had to stand up to set of the alarm. The next morning I was a little angry at myself because I had to stand up to turn of the alarm 😀 but it worked. When I turned of the alarm I was standing in my room and I thought: “okay now that you are awake you can have a shower right away” and I went having a shower.

I was ready with my shower and the clock said: 6:45am. So I was 30 minutes earlier as usual and I had more than enough time for breakfast. And I felt great. I felt great because I found a way to stand up much earlier and I felt much more awake.

Now about 5 years later I still place my alarm away from my bed and it really helps my getting out of the bed no matter how tired I am.

Shower cold

I read an article about 2 years from now saying that showering cold is the best motivation boost you can have. So I wanted to give it a try. But without any success. I was standing for like 5 minutes in the shower talking to myself. But then I lost the argument to myself and enjoyed a hot shower. And I still really love to have a how shower. And I didn’t wanted to miss that.

So time went by until I had an idea to shower cold and still be able to enjoy a hot shower. Sounds impossible? My idea was to start my usual hot shower and the last 10 seconds of the shower I turn the water as cold as possible. And I challenged to myself to do it for the next 45 days. Why 45 days? Because I thought if I can do that for the next 45 days I have enough time to see the hopefully positive results so I make a habit out of it.

So the next day in the morning I turned the water to cold and counted to 10. The water was so cold I was not able to breathe for the 10 seconds. But afterwards I felt like I can run a marathon or lift a car. The second day was harder then the first day because I knew what was coming. But I did it again. And I was feeling so energized again. So time went by and the 45 days went by really fast. And I’m still showering cold at the end for at least 10 seconds. Why?

Because I feel much more energized and awake in the morning. And also much more motivated. Because when I showered cold I already have done something out of my comfort zone. And from there I felt that nothing could stop me. So I can absolutly recommend you to challenge yourself to have a cold shower every morning! It will be worth it!

Enjoy a good breakfast

The breakfast is the most important meal of the day. For over 8 hours your body didn’t get any nutrition and is empty. So it is your job to give your body what it needs so your body can work much better and you will feel more energized and awake.

Your breakfast should contain some fruits and a lot of good carbs. Good carbs are in food like whole-grain bread or oatmeal. Play around a little bit so it doesn’t get boring. You can also add fish if you want to or eggs. Also try to trink at least one glass of water in the morning.

If you are not motivated in the morning to make such a breakfast you can prepare it the day before so you only have to take it out of the fridge.

Do something you feel passionate about

This is by far the best tip I can give you. Do you remember how you felt when you woke up and it was your birthday or Santa was coming? Did you feel tired in these days? I bet you don’t. I don’t want to say that Santa has to come everyday, but I want to say that you should do something in the morning you like and you feel passionate about.

Maybe you want to do some exercising in the morning. I love a good run in the morning, but I know enough people who don’t like to exercise in the morning. So you have something you like and what challenges you. Maybe you want to build your first business and the first thing in the morning is to work on that. Whatever it is, if you go to bed and you look forward into the next morning you are doing everything well.

This can also be a job you love. If you have a job you love and you like going there it is much easier to stand up in the morning and be positive. So if are not happy about your current job then you need to make a change! If you want to work on your passion and earn money doing that you definitly have to check out my review about Wealthy Affiliate!

I hope you have now an good impression on how to have your perfect morning. For me these things helped a lot to be much more energized and awake in the morning.

How does you morning routine look like?  I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment below 🙂

Fabi

Boost your Productivity

I don’t know how you feel but I love the feeling of being productive. It is every time very satisfying to finish a day with all tasks completed. Maybe even I did some tasks in advance and I can finish earlier tomorrow.

I also know the feeling if you feel very unproductive and I couldn’t finish a single task. This can be very frustrating. The goal of my article is to motivate you and to boost your productivity. Here are some methods and techniques I use to be as much productive as possible.

Traffic lights

The first thing you have do is to separate your tasks into three different categories. The three categories are red, yellow and green just like a traffic light. Red marked tasks are very important tasks you have to do. For example, if there is an upcoming exam, learning for this exam would be a red task. Or finishing a presentation for the next day.

The next category is the yellow tasks and these are medium important tasks. These tasks are not red yet, but they become red within the next two weeks. It would be very helpful to do these tasks but they are not as important as red tasks.

The last category is the green tasks, which are not really important and can wait. Green tasks can become yellow tasks by time, but at the moment it is not really important.

Eat that Frog

Now that we have categorized our tasks we need an order we want to work on our tasks. What would happen if the first thing in the morning you do is to eat a frog? Well yes, that is disgusting but can it get worse? No of course not, so everything else seems very simple and not that disgusting. That’s how we order our tasks now.

You have to take your biggest and most disgusting frog and eat it at first. What does this mean? You have to take the task which is the most important and hardest one. This is your frog. If you finished your hardest task, what can now stop you?

So choose your most disgusting frog (task) and don’t stop until you finished. If you have finished all your red tasks continue with the yellow tasks.

Before I used this method I tended to make my hardest in the end. But there you don’t have much of your energy left and the task will be even harder. So it is much better to work on the hardest task when you have the most of your energy.

No multitasking

No matter if you are a man or a woman, only focus on one task. Often people say that they are much more productive doing two tasks at the same time but that is not true.

There are several studies about that and they all have the result that It is much more productive to focus only on one task. If you finish task by task you will be much more productive.

Eliminate disturbances

In order to be as much productive as possible, you need to be focused on your tasks by 100%. That means you have to eliminate all the possible disturbances.

The first thing you need to do is to have on your desk only the things you need to complete your task, so you don’t have to interrupt your work to search for a book or a report or anything like that.

The next thing you need to do is to put away all the things you don’t need this will only disturb you. So put away all the paper from different projects/exams and focus only one on task.

Put your smartphone on silent and close your email application. You can answer your emails and messages later, now you only have to focus on your task. It can take a lot of time to come back to a task after you answered a short message.

Get more energy

I feel the most productive when I feel awake and I have a lot of energy. There are several different factors which can give you more energy. You should include regular exercising to your daily schedule and try to eat healthier. This will also affect your sleep and you will feel better rested the next day.

Try running, bodyweight workouts or whatever makes you happy. By eating healthier you need to avoid junk food and drink water instead of soda drinks. You should drink more than 2 liters of water every day!

Also, it is very important to work not more than 8 hours per day. The rest of the day should be activities that relax you and give you more energy, like exercising or taking a bath. Also, there should be one day in the week (often Sundays) where you don’t work, you even don’t think about your work/tasks.

If possible try to travel one weekend in a month, this helps you to get away from your work so you can relax much better.

Sometimes less is more. If you feel relaxed and awake you will be much more productive, what makes you happier and gives you more free time.

Social pressure

If that all didn’t help you can set yourself under social pressure. At first, you have to search for a good friend or partner. Now you show this person all the tasks you want to complete and also this person shows you all the tasks he/she want to complete.

Now you have to control, whether your partner/friend completed all the tasks. This is usually enough pressure. It can be hard if you have to say to your friend that you couldn’t finish your tasks.

If that isn’t enough, you can also agree on a punishment. For example, if one didn’t finish his tasks he has to post an embarrassing photo on Facebook. You can be very creative here!

As you can see it isn’t very difficult to be productive. Do you have different techniques or method? I would love to hear from them so please leave a comment below 🙂

I wish you a very productive day! 🙂

Fabi

The perfect goal

A lot of successful people say that you have to set yourself goals in order to become successful. But how can you set yourself such a goal? The reason why many goals are not reached is a mixture of the person who created the goal and the goal itself. Maybe the goal was not set very well. Or maybe it was set to high and the result was frustration.

Maybe you have experienced the same. Maybe your goal was to get fitter or to lose weight, but after some time you lose motivation and you miss your goal. In order to set yourself the perfect goal what motivates you and what you will reach you need five different characteristics.

Why should I set a goal?

Before I will tell you the five characteristics I will tell you why it is so important to set yourself goals. Setting a goal should give yourself a direction you want to go. Setting yourself no goal is like going on a hiking trip without a destination. How do you know if you are on the right track? And where do you want to go? If you have goals you want to reach, you can be much more focused and motivated.

In addition, when you reach your goals you will be more confident and happy. Isn’t that what everybody wants? 🙂

What are there for different goals?

You need short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals are the goals you want to reach within the next month. Medium-term goals can be in-between 1/2 and 5 years. Long-term goals are goals you want to reach the next 5-10 years (or more).

You need to start with a long-term goal. Sit down with a piece of paper and think about all the things you want to have achieved 10 years from now. Maybe you want to drive a Ferrari or have a big home. Or maybe you want to run 10 miles without a problem. Whatever it is, write it down. Now take the goal, where you think that it has the highest impact on your life.

Now take this goal and think what you should have achieved 5 years from now so you can achieve your long-term goal. The last step is to find smaller steps you need to succeed in order to achieve your goal.

I give you an example, maybe you want to earn $10mio/year ten years from now. So a good goal in 5 years would be to earn $5 mio/year. Now you have to think what you need to achieve in order to reach your goal. Well, you usually can’t earn $10mio/year with a normal 9-5 job. So you need to find a different job, maybe you’re a good athlete or maybe you have to become a successful entrepreneur. If you want to become an entrepreneur you have to think about all the stuff you need to become a good entrepreneur. Maybe you need to talk to other successful entrepreneurs or you need to read more books, this can be your short-term goals.

Now you have a plan for your future, including small steps on the way to reach your goal. Of course, maybe it is hard to determine what it takes to be a good entrepreneur, but if you want to become one, you need to set small goals so you move in the right direction. A first goal could be for example to build your first business. Then you need to learn what it takes to create a business and again you have smaller steps.

I hope you can follow me 🙂 now it’s getting interesting. As I mentioned before you need five different characteristics to set yourself a good goal, so here are the five characteristics:

The five characteristics

S – Specific

First important characteristic is that your goal is specific. An unspecific goal can be for example: “I want to become fitter”. Well, this is great, but what does that mean? That can mean that you want to run faster or lift more weight. A specific goal would be for example: “I want to run faster”. Everybody understands your goal and you can work on your running in order to become faster.

M – Measurable

The next important characteristic is that the goal is measurable. For example, your goal is to run faster. So you have to measure your performance now and then. This is why “I want to become fitter” is not a good goal, because how do you want to measure this? But if your goal is measurable you can easily track your performance to see if you are reaching your goal.

A – Achievable/Acceptable

Another important characteristic is if your goal is achievable. What does this mean? This means that if you reach your goal, can you be proud of yourself? If now the goal is not acceptable. For example, the goal: “Make 10 steps per day” is not very acceptable. But for example “running a marathon” is one. So the important part here is to set your goal not too low! Your goal should challenge and motivate you!

R – Realistic

Also, should your goal be realistic. Don’t set yourself a goal you can’t achieve. For example, if you can do 10 pushups maximum you can never do 100 next week. If your goal is so high you can never achieve it, you should make your goal smaller. This can be really frustrating and demotivating. It is important also not to set your goal too high!

T – Time-based

This is one of the common mistakes when it comes to setting a goal. Most people set themselves the goal to loose weight. But if you don’t have a time frame you will never start. So for example, if you want to loose weight say something like: “until the end of March I want to loose x pounds”. So set yourself a specific date/time for your goal.

So the next time you want to set a goal, make it a SMART goal. Setting the perfect goal shouldn’t be too hard following these 5 rules I hope 🙂

I hope you now have the knowledge to set yourself the perfect goal. Follow the five rules and your goal will be motivating. You will be more motivated and more confident in your life.

What are your experiences with setting a goal? If you have any questions I would be very happy, if you leave me a comment below 🙂